Windows 11: the gateway to empowering your organisation’s productivity and security 

The world of work has changed a great deal in recent years, and this has had a huge impact on the workloads that IT teams, administrators and security teams have had to deal with. According to Samsung, some large organisations have one IT staff member for every 600 end-users within their estate, underlining the strain that these vital tech teams are facing.

Adding to the pressure is the fact that expectations from employees for high-quality, well-functioning technology are rising all the time. In the era of flexible and remote working, it’s never been easier for talent to shop around for better opportunities; if their current employer can’t give them the IT experience they want, then they’ll quickly look for a competitor who will.

So it might seem that, given all this burden, having to manage a migration to Windows 11 at the same time is just too much to deal with. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, and the benefits in the long run make it all worthwhile.

Windows 11 has been on the market for some time now, and is increasingly becoming the preferred choice with Windows 10 reaching end-of-support in October 2025. 

What’s holding IT management back if still using Windows 10?

Windows 11 has been on the market for some time now, and is increasingly becoming the preferred choice with Windows 10 reaching end-of-support in October 2025. 

Because of the perceived cost, complexity and potential disruption around migrating to Windows 11, many organisations have been holding back from making the change. But in the long term, this could lead to some serious ramifications from an IT management and admin perspective:

• Lack of patches and updates: Microsoft will no longer be providing patches and updates for Windows 10 after October 2025, which could lead to an increasingly outdated system and greater security vulnerability.
  
• Extra support costs: organisations will have to access extended support, which is estimated to cost £50 per device in the first year, £100 in the second and £200 in the third. Additionally, firms face greater CapEx costs through keeping more on-premise infrastructure, and greater staffing costs to manage everything.
  
• Lack of technological agility: with an older legacy system that is relatively ill-suited to new innovations, the IT team and wider organisation will find it harder to maximise agility and adapt to new opportunity and working models.

All of these issues can contribute to poor employee experience, with knock-on effects on productivity, workplace morale, and ultimately talent retention and acquisition. And it’s these areas that Windows 11 is proving so effective in addressing.

How Windows 11 enables better productivity and easier management

Many of the new features within Windows 11 are designed to enable the streamlined management and stronger employee experience that organisations are looking for. Three innovations stand out in particular:

• Windows Autopatch: this gives IT teams the control over when and where to apply updates and security patches, including staggering and pausing them, so that they can be prioritised and so disruption can be minimised. Forrester has found this can reduce the admin burden of updates by between 50% and 95%.
  
• Microsoft Intune: simplification of managing driver and firmware updates, through validated and certified drivers, better reporting and control, and the ability to update cloud-attached devices through Windows Updates.
  
• Universal Print: remove print servers and drivers by moving print to the cloud, enable users to securely print confidential documents using QR codes and the Microsoft 365 app without the security vulnerabilities of shared printing resources.

What’s the scale of the difference this can make?

Windows 11, and the features mentioned above, demonstrate why now is the perfect time to move towards a primarily cloud-based solution. With the deployment support of SCC, it can help your IT management and admin teams understand their best approach to the migration, including how to:

• Take a wider approach to change: this is a chance to look at the underlying management of devices, and how innovations like Microsoft Intune can contribute to a wider simplification of IT management.
  
• Implement a device refresh: connected to the previous point, any move towards Windows 11 should go hand-in-hand with a refresh of devices and hardware, to ensure that employees have up-to-date kit that’s reliable and full of innovative capabilities.
  
• Drive agility and competitive advantage: Windows 11 is an enabler of future technology, one that supports greater productivity, more flexibility in working, and a greater ability to adapt and innovate quickly in the future.
  
• Free up vital IT staff resources: simplifying and automating management and support tasks saves time for IT administrators, which they can use to minimise downtime and focus on more strategic tasks elsewhere.

Conclusion: what about security?

Of course, in the modern climate, any technological change has to bear security in mind, and balance that against productivity. Windows 11 has ensured that balance has been covered, through:

• A redesigned OS with secure hybrid work in mind, including hardware-based isolation, zero-trust security, biometric and facial authentication and advanced encryption
• On-by-default for many security features, ensuring protection out of the box without any provisioning demand on the IT team
• Microsoft Intune Suite Endpoint Privilege Management that right-sizes privileges to specific users and applications

All this ensures that every employee gets a productive experience, wherever and whenever they work, without compromising security or overburdening the IT team. That makes Windows 11 a winning move for all, and puts organisations on the right track for long-term success.